containerization-framework

Rust bindings for Apple's Containerization framework, which runs each Linux container in its own lightweight VM.

The Rust API mirrors Containerization's Swift API as closely as it can. Modules are named after the Swift modules, types after the Swift types, and methods after the Swift methods, in snake case. Types are grouped into modules of related types, such as containerization::container and containerization_oci::image. A Swift type nested in another, like LinuxContainer.Configuration, is in a module named after its parent, so its path is containerization::container::linux_container::Configuration.

use containerization_framework as cfw;
use cfw::containerization as cz;
use cfw::containerization_extras as cz_extras;

let store = cz::image::ImageStore::new("/Users/me/.cache/containers".as_ref())?;
let kernel = cz::vm::Kernel::new("/Users/me/.cache/vmlinux", cz::vm::SystemPlatform::LINUX_ARM);
let mut manager = cz::container::ContainerManager::with_initfs_reference(
    &kernel,
    "ghcr.io/apple/containerization/vminit:0.51.0",
    &store,
    Default::default(),
)?;

let image = store.get("docker.io/library/alpine:3", true)?;
let address = cz_extras::address::CIDRv4::parse("192.168.64.7/24")?;
let gateway = cz_extras::address::IPv4Address::parse("192.168.64.1")?;
let options = cz::container::container_manager::CreateOptions { networking: false, ..Default::default() };
let container = manager.create("example", &image, options, move |config| {
    config.process.arguments = vec!["/bin/sleep".into(), "infinity".into()];
    config.interfaces = vec![cz::network::Interface::Nat(cz::network::NATInterface::new(address, Some(gateway)))];
    config.dns = Some(cz::network::DNS { nameservers: vec!["192.168.64.1".into()], ..Default::default() });
    Ok(())
})?;
container.create()?;
container.start()?;

let process = container.exec("hello", cz::process::LinuxProcessConfiguration::new(&["/bin/echo", "hello"]))?;
process.start()?;
let status = process.wait(None)?;
process.delete()?;

container.stop()?;
manager.delete("example")?;

Swift's async methods block until they finish, and errors they throw are returned as cfw::Error. A container belongs to the process that created it, and stops when that process exits.

Requirements

• macOS 26 on Apple silicon, and Xcode 26 to build. On macOS the crate builds only on and for aarch64-apple-darwin, and any other target fails with a message saying so.
• A network connection on the first build. The build script compiles the bundled Swift package, and SwiftPM fetches Containerization and its dependencies at the versions pinned in the Package.resolved that ships with this crate.

On other platforms this crate compiles, so a cross-platform workspace builds, but every call that would reach Swift returns Error::Unavailable. Values built purely in Rust, such as IPv4Address::new or Descriptor::new, work as usual.

Codesigning

A binary using this crate must carry the com.apple.security.virtualization entitlement. Without it Virtualization.framework refuses to start a VM, and LinuxContainer::create fails.

This crate ships a containerization.entitlements file. A rebuild drops the signature, so pass that file, or a copy of it, to codesign after every build:

cargo build --release
codesign --force --sign - --entitlements containerization.entitlements \
  target/release/your-binary

Signing ad hoc (--sign -) grants the entitlement, but gives the binary a new code identity on every rebuild, so anything keyed to that identity, such as Keychain access, prompts again. Sign with a development identity to keep it stable.

Linking

This crate links the Swift runtime dynamically, as @rpath/libswift_Concurrency.dylib, which dyld finds in /usr/lib/swift. Every binary that links this crate, including your crates' test binaries, needs that rpath, or it builds and then dies in dyld at launch.

A build script's link arguments reach only its own package's targets, so set the rpath in your .cargo/config.toml, where a rustflag covers every target:

[target.'cfg(target_os = "macos")']
rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib/swift"]

Shape

• containerization, in five groups. image: ImageStore, Image, image::Description, InitImage, KernelImage, EXT4Unpacker. vm: Kernel, SystemPlatform, VMConfiguration, VMResources, BootLog, VZVirtualMachineManager, VZVirtualMachineInstance, Vminitd, VsockListener. network: VmnetNetwork, NATInterface, Interface, DNS, Hosts. container: ContainerManager, LinuxContainer, LinuxPod, Mount, and the configuration types they take (linux_container::Configuration, ...). process: LinuxProcess, LinuxProcessConfiguration, Signal, LinuxCapabilities, ExitStatus.
• containerization_oci, in four groups. content: LocalContentStore, Content, ContentWriter. image: Descriptor, Platform, Reference, Manifest. client: RegistryClient, Authentication, KeychainHelper. runtime: Spec and the types it holds, Bundle, State, User.
• containerization_archive: ArchiveReader, ArchiveWriter, WriteEntry, and the formats and filters they take.
• containerization_error: the Code that a thrown ContainerizationError carries, which Error::is_code checks.
• containerization_ext4: ext4::Formatter, ext4::EXT4Reader, ext4::SuperBlock, ext4::Inode, ext4::JournalConfig, FileTimestamps.
• containerization_extras: in address, IPv4Address, IPv6Address, IPAddress, Prefix, CIDRv4, CIDRv6, CIDR and MACAddress; at the root, InterfaceAddress, LinkRoute, DefaultRoute, ProgressEvent and ProgressHandler; and proxy_utils.
• containerization_io: ReadStream.
• containerization_os: Terminal, sysctl, file, keychain::KeychainQuery, and in linux, CapabilityName, CapabilitySet and binfmt.

A few things work differently because Rust can't express them the way Swift does:

• Rust has no default arguments, so ContainerManager.create's optional arguments are fields of container::container_manager::CreateOptions, whose Default uses Swift's default values. An initializer's options struct is named after its type, such as ContainerManagerOptions, and a method's is named after the Rust method, such as CreateWithRootfsOptions.
• Rust has no overloading either. Where Swift overloads a name, the second Rust method adds a suffix naming the argument that tells them apart: ContainerManager.create(_:image:rootfs:...) is create_with_rootfs, and ImageStore(path:contentStore:) is ImageStore::with_content_store. Where the overloads differ only in taking a closure, as with LinuxContainer.exec, the one taking a closure ends in _with.
• Where Swift takes a ReaderStream or Writer for a process's stdin, stdout and stderr, Rust takes a file descriptor. Swift uses a duplicate of it, so you keep yours open and close it yourself.
• ContainerManager.create takes a Rust closure. It receives the configuration the manager has prepared and runs on a Swift thread, so it must be Send + 'static. So must LocalContentStore.ingest's body and a ProgressHandler, and a ProgressHandler must also be Sync. Each method's docs say whether its closure may call back into this crate.
• Swift's configuration closures can throw, so Rust's return Result<(), Error>. To throw, return Err(Error::failed(...)). An error the closure returns is the one the call returns.
• Content.decode() is generic over Swift's Decodable, which Rust can't call. Read Content::data and decode the bytes yourself.
• Swift computes everything about an address, from parsing it to its description and isLoopback. Each of those calls Swift and returns a Result, which is why addresses have a description method rather than Display. Their PartialOrd and Platform's PartialEq call Swift's operators too, so off macOS, comparing them panics.
• Where Swift's initializer checks or changes a value, as with Prefix, CIDRv4, CIDRv6 and MACAddress, only Swift makes one, so their fields are read through getters.

OCI runtimes

An OCI runtime, and with it a seccomp profile, can be configured. Swift refuses a seccomp profile without an OCI runtime path, and the runtime has to be in the init image. The init image Apple publishes has no runc, so such a container fails to start unless you build an init image with one.

Versioning

The init image's vminitd must match the Containerization release this crate builds against (0.51.0, in swift/Package.swift): they share a protocol, and a mismatch fails at runtime rather than at build time. As in Containerization, the caller chooses the kernel and the init image.

Testing

cargo nextest run runs the unit tests. They also check Rust's copies of Swift values, such as raw values, defaults and struct layouts, against Swift.

The suites in tests/ call into the real framework, so they sit behind the integration feature and run through bin/dev/test-integration. Some only ask Swift for values, while others boot real containers and VMs. The script signs each test binary with containerization.entitlements first, because the entitlement is checked against the calling process. Run the suites only through the script: a test binary that cargo rebuilds after the script signed it has no entitlement, and its VMs fail to start.

Those tests share an image store at ~/.cache/containerization-framework-tests, which is kept between runs. Before the tests that boot a VM, nextest runs bin/dev/prepare-integration as a setup script, which downloads the kernel into the store. The tests then pull the init image and alpine:3 themselves, and the registry tests talk to Docker Hub. A first run therefore needs the network, and later runs reuse the store. The store's directory can be deleted at any time.

Two tests open Containerization's default image store, and in doing so create ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.containerization if it is missing. The tests that need a vmnet network pass without checking anything on a host whose process lacks the vmnet entitlement, and say so in their output.

License

MIT. Containerization itself is Apache-2.0 and is fetched at build time, not vendored here.